NSS Labs security tests provide superior information for customers, simply because they are conducted independently and without vendor influence, according to Fortinet's Kalle Bjorn.

NSS Labs is an information security research and advisory company, and routinely tests security hardware and software products to provide potential buyers with how well products perform.

Bjorn - a systems engineering director - accused some testing labs of accepting payments from vendors in exchange for favourable test results. But when it comes to NSS Labs, he said, tests are done completely independently, thereby guaranteeing unbiased results.

"In the past, a lot of vendors were delivering test reports that showed that their own product is better than a competing product. NSS is a little bit different because with NSS what they do is an independent test. As a vendor, we don't pay NSS to do the test," he said.

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"If you look at some of the other labs that do this kind of testing, they usually have a vendor going to them with a product, and a pile of money on top of it!"

In April, NSS Labs awarded Fortinet's FortiSandbox-3000D a ‘recommended' rating for its advanced persistent threats breach detection system. That rating was earned on the back of an independent test, Bjorn said.

However, not everyone has the same view of NSS Labs as Fortinet does. When NSS Labs released its April 2 report on vendors' ability to detect advanced attacks, FireEye hit back with a scathing post claiming that the NSS methodology is "severely flawed."

"We insisted that the only way to properly test was to run in a REAL environment. NSS declined to change their testing methodology so we declined to participate in the most recent test," the post said.